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Author: muaythairebel

Week 3 of being back to my Muay Thai gym is officially in the books.
I had exactly 6 months of break from Muay Thai, 4,5 months from exercise at all.

How it feels to go back after such a long time?

Friggin’ good!! And VERY difficult!

I was so anxious to go back to my first training, I was pushing it off for 2 or 3 weeks, but I promised myself I’d be back in May, so I had 31 days to fulfill this promise 😀 And I did it!

>>Digression. A lot of years back, in winter, me and my two best friends who lived close by were planning to start running in the spring. So as March comes around the two of us who were more determined, try to make plans with the third one and she’s like…”what? running?! now?! I thought we were supposed to start runinng in a month starting with “m”…in May? :D”.<<

It was really hard at first, my brain couldn’t handle all the combos and sequences we were training. I literally spent a whole training struggling to get a grip on what we were supposed to do!!! It was really hard.

Week 2 we had sparrings and I SUCKED SO BAD! Eating punches and being out of breath was what it looked like.

Week 3 we did some technical sparing “combo for combo” and I started to feel it again a little bit. Because there were few of us at the gym, the trainer took some time to work with everyone on their own flaws in technique. I have SO MUCH to work on!

The group didn’t really change at all when it comes to people, so that’s also easy for me, coming back after such a long break. Our group is “open”, so everyone trains together, from beginners to fighters. I was a bit scared of the group changing alltogether, but everyone has stayed and I didn’t see anyone new yet. It’s cool to see how much progress last years’ beginners have made in this half year! Now it’s really nice to train with them, you don’t have to look out for them, because they’re not beginners anymore! So cool! We also have one guy who’s left-handed and I really like to train with him, it gets your brain working as well. We also have one guy who just recently fought in an amateur bout and TKOed his opponent in the 2nd round! So impressive! There’s also a girl who’s as tall as me and she’s gotten real good in the past half year, she kicks real hard, so no going easy on her! I love to see the no-bullshit attitute in her eyes when we train. So cool to have another dedicated female around!

Mid- August I’m going for a training camp that will be a week long, so I hope I will get better by then.

Since I’ve been back at the MT gym, I couldn’t really squeeze in my strength training anywhere, which I’m sad about. I started to enjoy lifting and I was beside myself when I realized I could deadlift 51kg after just 4 weeks of strength training 2x a week! I also started to see some muscle definition, so all that was making me look forward to going to the gym and lifting.
The longer I’m away from the gym, the more anxious I get to go back.
I need to reschedule my weeekly training plan, so that everything will fit into it.

For the past 3 weeks I managed to do 2x Muay Thai, 1x HIIT training, 1x strength. I know, it’s weak and I feel like I’ve been slacking, but I couldn’t push through it. I should be doing one more HIIT and one more strength training, PLUS morning intervals, but I just can’t force myself to get up an hour earlier and work out in the morning….
There’s a lot of stress at work recently and I had problems sleeping because of the stress…so sleepless nights, working 8hrs at the office, teaching kids at the language school after work, going to training….it was just too much and I needed to take a break here and there, so I skipped some trainings even though I had them scheduled.
Last week I put a lot of effort to handle my sleep pattern a bit better, trying to go to bed earlier (1 am instead of 4 am), drinking soothing bedtime teas and it has helped me to find a balance this week. I was still almost dozing off in the evening before I should go train, but I pushed through!!!

Tomorrow’s my first check-up with the nutritionist and I hope my weight won’t jump overnight – my body’s like that…so that’s actually possible, but for the last week it was pretty good, so I hope it won’t jump. I’m curious to see how my fat percentage has changed, even though I only lost like 5kg in 2 months….

Now we have a long weekend here in Poland, 4 days off! I will rest a lot, clean a lot LOL, meet with friends and catch-up on my animes. Boring? Well, nothing wrong with tuning it down a notch for a while.

I’m on a break from Muay Thai since November. Yeah, it’s been over half a year. When I put it like that I can’t belive it.

I miss it badly, but at the same time I feel as if I don’t really have a place to go back to. I will be starting off again from the beginning.

And that’s okay.

If you wonder what I’ve been up to since my last post, at first I was sick. Then started to get a little bit better and I keep it that way until now. Oh and I got a new tattoo and my mom is not talking to me anymore (I am an adult and I live on my own, for the record).

I started working with a nutricionist and training coach, so I got a meal plan and strenght plan, which I’m sticking to since about a month.

I can’t say I have immediate huge results, but it’s better then nothing. I lost like 3kg in this month. Someone else could probably lose 10kg, but I’m me. I have my own health issues and my body needs to adjust to everything.

I’m trying real hard to add the short morning interval workouts, but it’s just impossible until now…

I plan to do at least 2 this week, let’s hope I will succeed!

So yeah, I’m still far away from any real weightloss achievements, the progress is really slow, but I feel better physically.

I started lifting weights and it’s really fun to see that I can lift more then 2 weeks ago. The progress in this area is huge!

I also noticed that when I mess up my eating hours, I tend to fall off the track in the evening and just feel weak and bloated.

It’s amazing to finally be fine-tuning myself to my own body.

Today I heard a great thing in Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu’s vlog: it’s not setting your goals and trying to achieve them what makes you really achieve them. It’s imagining what it feels like to accomplish that goal. We do things based on what we want to feel – or what we don’t want to feel.

In my case, I want to lose weight. I need to imagine how great it feels to stand on the scale and see the numbers going down. How empowering it feels to lift more, do more push-ups, crunches, burpees or run for more then 10 minutes. How I like the feeling of my tummy becoming flatter. How I love the feeling of putting on clothes that magically fit me nicely.

On the other hand, I’m still aware of the things that I DON’T want to feel. I don’t want to feel like I’m deprived of some kind of food, because it’s over my calories limit. I don’t want to feel like I’m the only person that’s constantly on a diet and has to say “no thanks” to cake and sweets on every social outing. I don’t want to feel like the heaviest in the group, which makes me avoid people.

So, there’s a lot of things I have to work on, but I really belive it will all come together and that I’m on the right path. I really think so. I don’t want to give up.

As far as Muay Thai training goes…yeah, I feel a bit lost, discouraged and unmotivated, because I clearly see that the Muay Thai I can learn here is nothing like the Muay Thai in Thailand…and not really having a gym or gym-mates waiting for me to come back is also very depressing. I’m often thinking about a solution to this, but I’m just going in circles. I want to do a lot of things, but to get it I have to sacrifice something else. I already sacrificed a lot of my social life and the idea of having a family, and I feel that pursuing what I feel I want to do will make sacrifice even more and I really don’t have much more to sacrifice. I need to have a job, I need to have a stable income, coz I provide for myself on my own. I also want to workout and do something fun from time to time, because what’s life for if you don’t have fun. And it’s a lot more fun if you have friends to do it with you. And if I sacrifice my social life, I end up having no friends to hang out with. I feel right now as if my life is focused on work and trying to get by with the money I make. I can’t even plan my next trip to Thailand, because I just don’t have enough money to put aside and save up for it. It SUCKS. And is depressing.

I feel as if I’m floating between depression and dreams all the time lately.

Now I have sinus infection and I finished taking antibiotics yesterday…but I still feel the infection.

In the meantime, my Grandpa got sick and was staying at the hospital, getting worse and worse and he was finally brought into a elderly care home on Thursday. Because I was sick I couldn’t visit him at the hospital, so when I went to the care home on Thursday when he was brought there, it was me seing him for the first time in 2 weeks and his condition was tragic. When I last talked to him we were talking, now I was glad he recognized me and could exchange a few coherent sentences with me. I helped out the caretakers that evening, talking to him, feeding him and just keeping him company. On the next day, Friday, I visited after my work again, again helping the caretakers feed him and giving him water. But I’m not sure if he recognized me and was looking awfully worse then the day before.

The next morning I got a call from my parents that he passed away at sunrise. The funeral’s tomorrow and I am sad. But at the same time, I feel relief. He was really suffering and he was aware of it and aware of the fact that his body is not doing what he wants it to do. It was breaking my heart seeing him like this and knowing he will suffer for who knows how long… So I was not surprised by the call…I was the last person from our family who visited him before his passing.

The funeral will be really hard to deal with for me, because I get anxious when I have to be in an unfamiliar situation where a lot of people will watch and scrutinize me. It’s not helping that the funeral will be catholic and I don’t really like this kind of spiritual religous athmosphere. I will endure it for my mom’s sake, because I belive the whole ceremony around a funeral is to make the people who are still alive feel better about themselves.

Apart from the last few weeks being stresfull because of my Grandpa’s illness and me being still sick, I gained even more weight.

I don’t fit into my Muay Thai shorts anymore. This was a kind of wake-up call…so I tried watching my calories intake and I stopped eating sweets for 3 weeks. I managed to lose 5kg, which is A LOT. But since Monday I’m binge-eating again. I’m an emotional eater and I think I need to calm the stress now, but I’m really disapointed in myself. I’m guessing I re-gained 2kg again 😦

I hope I will be healthy in a week or two…When I am healthy again, I plan to focus on losing weight and bulding my cardio back up, before I go back to training. So basically doing cardio on the threadmill and elliptical + HIIT training after I build myself up a bit again. After that, I’ll add a bit of strength training.

I wonder if I should start working with a nutritionist and focus on my weightloss before I go back to training Muay Thai? Because it seems I am unable to do both at the same time…and I think a change of pace will help me find my love and focus for Muay Thai again, because now I have anxiety issues that I suck at Muay Thai and that I’m an eyesore in class and that I should just close myself at home an never go outside.

Yeah, being sick doesn’t help my social awkwardness…

Sorry for the unmotivated entry, but that’s how life is at the moment for me. I just want to be healthy again.

It’s been quite a while since I last wrote here. Since then, my Muay Thai training and conditioning was just all over the place. Once good, then bad, then even better, just to get worse again.

It’s not yet a 2016 summary blog post, I’m not quite sure yet if I’m gonna do one for now.

I wanted to share some thoughts I’ve came up with during the last few months. Part of it I had already written in October, part of it is fresh.

What I learned through those past months is, that you need to step back from what you love, what’s your life, to see what needs improvement. To see that things that you thought were sacrifices, were not really them. And that things that we choose out of the need to improve can sometimes lead us in the wrong direction.

So it’s time for story No 1.

I was telling you about my struggles with finding a gym after the last one closed down around May 2016 (Husarz gym), so I kept going to my second gym (Champion gym) that has THE BEST trainer imo (Igor), but he said he was going to Bahrain long-term, then he came back (this, I suspected lol) and then he said he’ll probably stop teaching here (Champion gym) because he was in talks with another gym that’s totally away from my perimeter.

It was August and I was facing a possible season with no place in reasonable distance to train at and – what bothered me the most – with no trainer who knew me. Therefore, I decided to try out a new gym as the “season” was starting out in September. I chose a gym (Eskulap gym) that’s absolutely closest to me (5 minutes by car!), so I was really enthusiastic. The off part – I trained with this trainer (Mr. A) before and I knew I don’t like his style of teaching, nor his Muay Thai.

Well, long story short, my time at this gym (Eskulap) was a failure. I went there a few times throughout a span of a month.

I learned one thing that I have to work after recieving hours of what I percieve verbal abuse and humilation in front of the group. (I don’t work well when someone’s screaming at me and singling me out in a negative way in front of the group ALL.THE.FRIGGIN.TIME). After a particular hardcore training, I felt so low that I was this close to quitting Muay Thai altogether, letting the trainers’ words get to my head and starting to belive that I just can’t learn anything and that I do everything wrong.

Well, to be honest, it was not only the verbal abuse, but actual physical abuse that just pulled me over the top. While training some combination on the bag the trainer came and punched me in the face, real hard, because I was not returning to my guard after a punch fast enough. If my eyes were blades, he’d drop dead right there. I contained myself, and I saw he realised he’s crossed a line, because he softened up immediately. Still, that was it. I was over with this gym and this trainer. And probably Muay Thai at all.

I felt incredible awful for the next couple of days, not having any idea how I should deal with this situation and these feelings. Maybe I was really only a soft coward? Maybe I was overreacting?! But deep down I knew I HAD to trust my instincts and I was sure this is not how I should feel after a training class.

What helped me? A hearful conversation with someone who also trained with this trainer in the past and knows about his ways, who pulled me up when I was totally down. I can’t be thankful enough.

And the second thing was, I went to train with my BEST trainer (Igor) and he was complimenting my kicks, and knees – and also patiently repeating (I think for the hundreth-or so time) the things I still have to work on. He’s also a screamer, but in a totally different way – at least towards me! He doesn’t bring you down or make you feel useless. His advice empowers me. It felt so good to hear something good about my Muay Thai for a change. So I knew that me sticking to Muay Thai was not a mistake.

What has this experience thought me?

Trust your instincts, never disregard your feelings that something isn’t right. It’s a thing I learned from 8limbs.us’ amazing Sylvie. “If you feel something’s off, it probably is.” Trust your instincts. What’s good for someone else might not be good for you. Or the other people just don’t realise yet that it’s wrong and they’re sticking with it.

Trust your insticts and use your favorite pink fairy filter to make you look and feel better!!!!

In between this gym and going back to my best trainer at the previous gym (Champion), I also tried another gym that started offering Muay Thai classes with a highly recognized trainer, but it also fell through as the trainer was only a marketing magnet. Again, that was not good for me, maybe for someone else it is.

In the meantime (because training is not everyday and I need different excercise) I was working on my strength and cardio during interval/HIIT fitness classes. After 3 months of regular training 2 times a week, I noticed I was able to run for half an hour! I was so proud of the work I put in and the results I got out of it. It really helped me gain confidence in my stamina during Muay Thai training!!!

Story no. 2 – because if there’s a high, there’s a low

At the beginning of November I started to feel off and shortly after I got sick. I dunno what it is, but it’s currently my 6th week out of training. I gained 4kg during this time, mostly because I was comfort eating. Everyone’s life was going on around me, but I only could feel miserable and the frigging cold was not going away. So I sat at home, alone, devastated that I’m missing out on so many fantastic training opportunities, knowing that with every day my stamina gets worse and worse until it disappears at all and being pissed off with the inability of the doctors to help me. I mean, I could work and stuff, I just lost my voice, was coughing all the time really bad and was feeling awful. But no fever, no nothing. I was eating all the stuff I wasn’t supposed to eat just to calm myself down, to have a piece of the happiness the world around me was experiencing and after 3 weeks I hit an all-time high. I won’t tell you my weight here, but it’s incredibly high. Hitting up on BMI 33 – obese level 1 alright. I felt awful.

I don’t know what happened, if it was the lowest point or what? I didn’t stop eating even after I hit this high weight. I still went on for a day or two and then, just stopped eating all those sweets. It was already more than 3 weeks that I couldn’t work out and my cold was not getting better – it was getting worse again. I called it getting into the 2nd act of a theatrical play, because it all seemed to me like a tragicomedy.

So yeah, I realised that while my body is fighting the cold virus or whatever, I need to aid it, not pull it down for whatever reasons I had.

First, I stopped going to shops and buying all the wonderfully colorful looking sweets (Xmas is near, all shops are awfully filled with sweets).

Second, I started to meal prep again and introduced healthy carbs that I was staying away from before, while I was trying to eat paleo. Uh-uh, not now. I added rice, wheat, tapioca, sweet potatos, even whole-grained pasta to my meals. I tried to balance it out and try combinations I never tried before. Salads, fish, even a bun here and there. Homemade stuff. Get creative. Try out things. It was even fun for a few days to cook and experiment. But I’m not a lover of cooking, so the fun was there only only for a moment 😉 But it was enough to bring me back on the good path. I prevented overeating, I ate when I was starting to feel hungry, but also kept an eye on the clock to not eat too often. I even went out and ate a whole lot of freaking good sushi (thank you for the treat <3)

Third, I remembered that it’s easier for me to lose weight when I’m actually not working out. So I realised, if I can’t have any say in when I’m gonna be healthy and ready for training again, I can spend my time contributing to my goals that I want to achieve through my training, even if I can’t work out at the moment. And losing weight is a must-do to get to my goals. So what should I wait for? I can start now and maybe I can lose a bit of weight until I can go back to training?

The results? I lost 3,5kg in the last 3 weeks out of the 4kg I gained since the beginning of my cold, so I’m more or less back to “starting” weight. I’m currently in the theatrical act no. 3 in my play cold (ha, see pun here??”called-cold?!) “The sick rebel” and I have no idea when it will totally go away. The doc says I need to keep warm, stay at home and wait it out. I know there should be something I can do, but for now it’s sticking to my healthy diet, taking the meds I was prescribed to take, and boosting my immune system with all the possible natural stuff.

What have I learned from it?

It shifted my perspective. I was so engrossed into training, trying to make everything work with my job and part-time job, as well as fitting in all the training sessions and trying to cook and eat clean, I totally lost sight of my goal. Which is not one thing. I’m still not ready to put it in one word, one sentence. But what I know and what I saw again – I was reminded that me working out is not what I have to do, it’s what I choose to do. Because it’s fun to train and see what your body is capable of doing – whatever size it may currently be at.

One more effects of shifting your (camera) perspective: it makes you look better in pictures, like so (me at BMI 33 lol):

So that’s what I do. I love Muay Thai and I still want to get better at it and learn to execute the moves in a beautiful form of martial arts, but it’s only part of the whole journey.

There are so many more things I can do to enjoy my life, enjoy my body and the things I am capable of doing. The universe hates emptiness. In my case, if I have to sit out from training for a month, or two, or longer because of an illness – it’s not the end of the world, it’s not the end of my life. It’s a wonderful opportunity to begin something else, something new. Thanks to this whole experience I was reminded that I have so much more talents that are impatiently waiting to be used again! I don’t have to be afraid to be bored and in the endresult comfort-eat again out of fear of missing out, because it’s me who’s choosing and creatingwhat I want to do in this time.

So for now, the Muay Thai Rebel rebels while remembering the love for painting and decorating stuff. I needed it in a way. I’m happy I got to share my time between the things that I love, I’m healthier this way mentally – even though my body is still battling a cold. ;(

Here’s a piece I’m especially proud of (it’s a small fragment of the whole painting). Who can guess which anime is it inspired from?! 😀If you guess correctly, I’ll tell you my tumbrl url so you can join the wonderful fandom ;D Well, or I can do sth else, hit me up with an idea.

I had the pleasure to join the third gala organized by Ladies Fight Night – a promotion focusing on female fighters!!

It’s something totally unique in Poland, and from what I hear also in Europe.

The promotion organized a mix of K1 and MMA fights, with a little surprise this time – the fight of the night was a Muay Thai full rules 5-round fight!

I already enjoyed this kind of “mix” of styles when I went to the FEN10 gala in Warsaw in March – it’s another young Polish promotion that features K1 and MMA fights. So this was not something totally new, but I just LOVE that LFN made it into an all-female promotion!

The thing adding to the uniqueness of the promotion is that their galas are free – of course you need to get an invite and this is when it gets a bit tricky 😉 The fighters get to distribute invites to their people, so if you’re not close to any of them, you need to find another way to get in. The good thing is, if you’re a plain joe like myself you still have a chance to join by winning a drawing. So I won an invite and was thrilled to go!!!

The gala is free because of the heavy support by sponsors! There are A LOT of sponsors and the gala was organized extremely professionally! They are doing it for the third time and already on par with the biggest promotions in Poland! I’m really impressed! 🙂

There was music, video clips, a lot of screens, so you could see the action wherever you were seated, lots of lights and the best thing – you felt like you were sitting ringside!

The third gala – the FeMMAgeddon was organized in one of the biggest fair centers in Warsaw – the EXPO XXI. It’s a lot smaller than stadiums, but for a young rising promotion I think it was an appropriate and perfect place! It was also their first gala in Warsaw, the two event before were held in Łódź and were apparently smaller from what I know.

The main card was also streamed live on their website and aparently the numbers were really good!

I was also capturing a bit of the gala on my Snapchat, if you’re interested add me mitzzove – you still have a few hours to watch my story! 😀

The fight card

There were 11 fights, I couldn’t get my hands on any official fight card, so I can’t write down the names of all the fighters that participated 😦

There were more K1 than MMA fights and it was structured more or less like this: 2-3 K1 fights, 1 MMA fight.

I recognized a lot of the fighters from the Polish kickboxing and Muay Thai amateur scene and some of them performed incredibly good, some not so well.

Not all fights went the full distance, there was an impressive submission by a Brazilian fighter (I don’t have her name!! 😦 I’ll try to add it later), there were also TKOs and really incredible turns of events.

The fight I was most interested in was Sylwia Juśkiewicz vs Magda Mróz. Both are young fighters, Sylwia trains in MMA, is 18 and already fights pro! She’s a young phenom that drives the whole LFN promotion. I was a bit sceptical, thinking she was only a hype, because I saw Magda Mróz in a few amateur fights and she always wiped out all her weight class. They were fighting at 52kg I think and it was a K1 fight, Magda fights Muay Thai in her amateur carreer.

Well, what can I say, I was positively shocked by Sylwia’s performance. She has great techinque and a lot of strength behind it. Add to it a tenacity that makes a fighter unique and you have a UFC-level prospect! Really, seeing her fight I felt like watching the top girls in UFC! I hope she will make it big one day and I’m sure she would have a lot more difficult road to get exposure if it wasn’t for the Ladies Fight Night promotion!! Of course I’m sad that Magda didn’t win, but she stood her ground despite being counted twice in the last round.

The main fight

The fight of the night was Judyta Niepogoda vs Magda Gusztab and it was a Muay Thai fight in 60kg.

I know Marta Gusztab as a solid Muay Thai fighter who has some professional experience and I loved her style! She lost by split decision 😦 But for me, she won!

A lot of people don’t get yet what’s so different between kickboxing and Muay Thai and for me this fight showed it great. Judyta has a more kickboxing style and in contrast to Marta who was steadily finding her rythm and not jumping around like you know from real Thai fights!

I was cheering for Marta and I was sitting behind someone, who was too, so with every landed kick and knee we screamed “oooi!” Thai-style! 😀 This was so cool! 😀

The plus side was, the girls entered the ring wearing a mongkol and going OVER the ropes!!!!! 😀 I was even shouting a little bit YESSSSS!! when they did it 😀 I saw there was a little commotion around it as during the K1 and MMA fights the fighter were entering through the middle ropes, but here they were wearing a mongkol, so NOT THIS TIME! 😀

It seemed like there was going to be a ram muay, as they entered with the mongkol, but after all not. During the first round they were playing some slow ram muay music, but then they turned it off. Oh bummer. I thing they need to work on that! 🙂

International participation

What is huge for such a young promotion is that they invited fighters from outside of Poland! There were a few girls the Uraine, Lattvia, Holland, Brazil, Germany!

Annysa from Holland, showed everyone what Holland K1 is all about did an amazing job dominating her opponent!

I love the fact that the promotion is reaching out to find new as well as experienced fighters from Europe. It’s a huge opportunity for the local fighters as well as the local audience to see high level female fighters and to show them what female fighting is all about!!! 😀

Gala attractions

During breaks between the fights the organizers made sure noone would get bored.

Before the fights started there was a lenghty video with features from previous events and you could get pumped up for the coming fights.

The fighters were greated by a local rapper singing a song composed for this occasion (well, I’m not into rap, so I thought the song was cheesy, but it’s still an attractions) _ Drużyna Mistrzów.

One of the sponsors – Endorfina wear – organized a fashion show presenting their newest collection. They are desinging sports wear for women, as well as men. The downside is, their size chart ends at L 😦 So I won’t be buying anything from them anytime soon, even though I LOVED the colors and some of the styles!! I can’t speak abut the quality of the clothes, but they look comfy and wearable.

During the fashion show a female rapper – Rena – was also presenting her songs. She has a unique style that really shows off her strenght as a woman. Well, again, I’m not into rap, but I liked her as a performer, she really left an impression.

Before the “main card” there was a longer break and everyone could go to another huge hall for a swedish buffet and grab a bite. I didn’t try any food because I was afraid I’d get an allergic reaction, from what I saw there were a lot of vegetable-based small bites as well as other stuff. There were a lot of people eating, so it was probably good 🙂 Still, so nice!

You could also see some cool cars up-close

Ring boys?

So the thing is, it always felt weird to me seeing almost-naked ring girls carrying the ring number sign around the ring before female fights. It felt inappropriate to me. Ring girls were invented to please the male audience, based on the saying that sex sells. Well, it also feels inappropriate for me during male fights, but that’s because I’m like that.

If we would go with the concept that on male fights you have ring girls, it’s kinda logical that on female fights you have ring boys, right?

Ladies Fight Night managed to do it in a incredibly tasteful fashion! Yes, it involved half-naked good-looking men, but hey, it’s the same with ring girls! The difference to me between the two is ring girls just go around showing off her boobs and buttocks, where here the men showed off their masculine bodies in a manly manner. They had a number painted on the chest and flexed their muscles 🙂 It’s basically the same what they would do at a bodybuilding competiotion, so nothing wrong here!

The best part was that the fighters were assisted by bare-chested bodybuilders that walked out behind them and hold the rope for them. I think it was a really nice and gentlemanly gesture. It happens a lot that the corner isn’t ready to open the ropes for the fighter for whatever reasons, so by providing a gentlemen with a sole purpose of holding the rope for the fighter is a brilliant idea. Personally for me it wouldn’t matter if he had a t-shirt on or not and as far as I know, most guys who have a body to show off would go bare chested rather than not 😉

—-

I ended the night going home around 2 am and discovering that on one bumpy road my exhaust in the car broke off and was hanging sadily. Monday morning, first thing I do, I’ll visit the mechanic 😉

I’m one of those people who know that you need to take care of yourself, but I always do it at the very end of things to do. Or don’t do it at all if I don’t have the motivation, time or money. So only after something happens, I try to un-do it by taking care of myself.

My severe back pain

Since February I’ve been experiencing extreme back pain that was returning to me every few weeks and was holding on for a few weeks. After the first one I thought I won’t be able to endure living like that if it doesn’t ease up, but fortunately it did. Every next pain that came was not as strong as the first one – or at least I was not feeling it so much anymore. It was painful and limited some of my movements like walking, sitting, lying, as well as kicking, but I still managed to work out a little bit.

Well, after 4 months of half-heartedly training with this pain I realised it’s high time to deal with it. My training situation was not looking up, I wasn’t really missing out on anything, so I decided that if I miss some training because of my treatment, I won’t be missing much.

A guy from work who works as a medic said that I have discopathy, which was terrifying to me!! I was so stressed out about it, I wanted to go see a physio NOW.

I visited a physiotherapist that my trainer recommended to me and I’m forever grateful to him for this!!

When I first came in, I had severe pain. I didn’t have an X-ray image because I wanted help now and then, and getting an X-ray would push it away for a week or two and I didn’t want to wait anymore.

I was really impressed by how the physiotherapist handled the whole procedure, I never visited a “real” physio-place, so I was a bit shy and nervous, but I started to loosen up during the examination.

After listening to my pain symptoms and triggers he did some mobility tests and started working on the most painful areas. That lasted for like, and hour. After that he applied a few minutes of show waves to loosen up my muscles and also did current therapy and laser therapy. All of this lasted for around 20-30 minutes. At the end he applied some kinesio taping on my back.

I got out really sore, like I’ve been doing two workouts in a row, but I was happy.

The next step was to add excercises to strengthen my core muscles. I started coming once a week for about 5 weeks and I really noticed that I was loosening up in all the tight spots.

When I first came in, the physio said about my neck and upper back muscles that it’s tightened up like concrete! 😀 haha yeah I know.

The pain was subsiding a little bit with every treatment, but some moves still triggered the pain and made it worse. So it’s not that the treatment was not helping, my body still couldn’t catch up with the new posture I should keep.

During the treatment I went to my doctor and we did a X-ray that showed some not so great things – I don’t know them in English, but basically my backbone is aligned horizontally and I have scoliosis. Which is what most of the people usually have. And discopathy T_T which is also pretty common.

The exercises I did with the physio lady have helped me to learn about a good posture for my condition, I have learned how to engage the deep muscles in my belly to kinda counter the excessive bend of my backbone that is causing me pain.

I still worked out during this time, but not 100%, I was still cautious about my back.

This treatment cost me a bit of money, but I better be broke than sick in bed. I decided it’s better to use some of my savings for my health, so that I can have a healthy body for a long time.

Changing my workout

Because of my back pain and the fact that one of my gyms closed down I didn’t work out much in the beginning of my treatment, but the physio said to just train as usual and watch for the trigger movements.

First I started doing some light excercises like going to a stretching class and “healthy back” class, but then I started to go to an “Interval” class two times a week. And I loved it! Well, no, I don’t love the workout, but I love seeing the progress I make and the fact that it’s also helping me with giving me a better ground for my Muay Thai training.

It’s called Interval or HIIT or Tabata – it comes under different names 🙂 It’s basically a training that is a set amount of time of maximum work and a short break. We usually do 30 sec work, 15 sec break. Usually there are 3 or 4 sets of, each set is usually 8 different excercises. The numbers change a bit depending on the instructor and the workout, but this is to give you a general picture. So it’s basically around 25-30 minutes of hard work. I hate how slow and sweaty and weak I am, but I love the feeling of accomplishmend and exhaustion at the end, when I do everything. What I love about intervals is that it’s great for every level of fitness. I’m not great with fitness excercises that we do there, so I was forcing myself to do it – even do slowyly, but work for the whole time. The 15 second break is so short that I can’t really catch my breath.

Honestly, these are the only things that make me push through this kind of workout:

It’s good for my general fitness, so it’s good for my Muay Thai training

Apart from it, I also read that it helps with speeding up your metabolism.

The change in eating habits

5 weeks ago I decided to put an end to my unhealthy eating habits. First of all, I was getting heavier and fatter every week and I hated it! Second, I hated the way I feel. Third, I hated how I felt when I was at the shop buying unhealthy things, and I was imagining people laughing behind my back about me being fat and eating sweets. I’m extremely self-consious, so this stuff messes me up real bad. And lastly, I really felt I need to change my life. I was not happy. I mean, sweets give me a moment of happiness and I feel good when I eat them, but they’re also the cause of my bad mood that I need to make better – with sweets. It’s a vicious circle that I wanted to break out of for a while.

I am not a fan of cooking, I just can’t make myself healthy and tasty meals, so I decided to buy a catering diet again. Previously I used this firm called Aveppi, so I went back to them and ordered the meal plan I had before – a kind o low IG diet which was good for me when I was loosing weigh before. I don’t know what happend, but my body changed and I wasn’t tolerating this kind of food so well!! I had constant stomach-aches, I felt bloated and had zero energy.

I asked if I could try out the other meal plan they were offering – a paleo diet. No sugar, gluten-free, lactose-free. I’m allergic to a lot of foods, but I was never diagnosed with an allergy against diary produts or wheat, so I was a bit against the paleo diet as being too overly-dramatic and being just a trend. Well, but it was the only option I had besides the IG diet and because I really like this catering firm (unfortunately they still don’t give me any discout :p) I wanted to try it. They agreed to switch out my last 3 days of my IG diet to the paleo one, so I can see if it’s good for me (well, I can count that as a discout…). And guess what, I really liked it!

This was also the beginning of me sticking to my “food boxes” – I decided I will not eat anything else besides what I get from the catering firm. The meal plan I ordered is 2000 kcal, which is good for me for now. In the 5 weeks – 30 days of my paleo experience I lost around 6kg! It’s actually somewhere between 5-6kg 🙂 I’m really happy with this result! I want to do it for at least 2 more months and see what results I can achieve in that time!!

Right now I have a 6 days break from my boxed diet, so I guess I’ll gain a kilo or two, but that’s ok. I still don’t allow myself to eat sweets, but I don’t sweat it if I’m out with friends and I’ll buy myself an icecream (natural one!) or eat popcorn and cola zero. I know it’s not perfect, but I don’t want to put myself under enourmous pressure. The only pressure I put on myself is not buying/eating sweets or icecream in gross amounts!

Feelings

I was so relieved when I saw that my weight begun to drop after the first week of eating clean. I really, honestly, didn’t belive that it will happend. That it will be just like all the other times I tried and didn’t loose weight… This was a huge motivation booster.

I can’t say it’s not hard – it is. But I will endure this hardship for 3 months – that’s the time I set for myself for this ‘experiment’. I suppose, I will be nowhere near my healthy weight after those 3 months, but it’s the best I can do for myself right now.

So once again – even though the catering diet is ridiculously expensive, I will invest this money into my health and into my plan. I know it’s bad to put your life on-hold while you diet, but there’s not so much going on in my life that I would miss out on anything. I can live without a pair of armchairs or new cabinets. I decided that everything has it’s time in life. I could desperately be trying to do things that would make my life more interesting and I would live through different experiences, but what’s it worth if I’m not happy with myself? The paradox is that I already had “the time of my life” while being utterly unhappy with myself, I don’t want this to spoil the fun anymore. I want to be fully confident and proud of everything I do in my life. Regardless if people find it boring or exciting. There will always be people judging and questioning your choices, the most important thing for me is to stick to my beliefs and just move on with MY plan. It’s my life and I want to be happy in in – MY kind of happy.

I know, life is a sine wave of good and bad things that happen to you.

After training diligently all April and kinda feeling like I’m getting back in shape, everything went wrong again.

May was a disastear. Every week I injured something new.

It started at the beginning of May when I fractured my little toe – it’s probably broken, but I didn’t see a doctor or do a MRI.

So, I was sitting out training for a week. After a week and a half my friend (who is a nurse in the “real” world) was sweet enough to tape my – still incredibly hurting – toe and I participated in the training class. I was going real light, no kicks, running during the warm-up was so embarassing (I was holding everyone up) and painful, but I managed. So, feeling more sure about myself I went to another training, taped my toe alright and….strained my back – like I did in February. I don’t know if it was me getting used to the pain or this time it was not as bad as last time.

Soooo…again, I was afraid to move around and was just waiting for the pain to go away. A week passed and my back still hurt, my toe started to hurt a little bit less and I almost cut off my thumb while slicing a bun. Yes. A freshly backed, wonderfully soft, wheat bun. I was so angry at myself! Every week I did something to myself, this was getting old!!!

Around the middle of May I decided to try a new nutrition approach as my weight was still incredibly high and I was feeling incredibly low. It’s called a “samurai diet”, it is like paleo, but I can eat some carbs like rice etc. I’m still really new to this and because I was feeling really bad about my fractured toe and strained back I was still comfort-eating…a little bit. So, no great results to share yet.

Towards the end of the month (May) I was slowly starting to get a hang of the new nutrition plan (still didn’t lose weight yet), and I was having less comfort-eating days, which in turn motivated me to make a plan for “what’s next after Thailand” (yeah I know it’s been 4 months already, but this shows you what a mess I was all this time). But you know what’s even better? I already started to make the plan happen!!

Every step I take to fulfill my plans gives me strength and I feel so empowered by my own actions! I love how this makes me feel.

Right now I’m working on moving into my own apartment. I already have things planned next, so it’s a huge step for me. But first things first, apartment.

After taking a break for 2 months because of my health issues after I came back from Thailand, I was feeling like I went back to the very beginning with my conditioning, strength, technique, overall feeeling. I struggled through every training, every minute. I was all covered in sweat by doing simple exercises during a fitness stretching class. I mean you do warm-up a bit during those, but I was totally sweaty, not slightly warmed-up! And this was the easiest fitness class available. I broke down for a moment there, but never gave up.

Now, a month of training diligently later, adding additional stretching classes and cardio hours into my week plan I see the progress I made during this month! I thought it will never happen, but it did. I’m still far from my conditioning from before I got sick, but the process has gived good results until now.

Well, what’s left is to take care of my bad eating habits and my diet. I stuff myself with food even if I don’t want to eat. I lost the ability to stop myself. I kinda forget that I shouldn’t eat it and the moment I reach for something I don’t thing about wheather I’m hungry or not. That’s a major disadvantage when you’re a big girl like myself and trying to shed some pounds. If I can’t control myself, noone will take the food out of my hand!

Just wanted to share that I’m seeing the results of my training this month.

Read on if you’re interested in some of my personal drama involving the loss of my dear cat. It sounds silly, but not for me.

Actually my training regimen was the only thing that went right this month. Apart from it, April 2016 sucked.

My 18-year-old kitty-cat died and the last days were horrible, I feel bad for having dragged her to 4 different vets when she only had a few days left to live. I went to the first vet on Sunday and she died on Thursday. I hoped that it will be worth the stress I put her in, like we go to the vet a few times, I help her now, but she’ll stick around in good shape for a few more months. I didn’t realize it was already the time for her to pass on. I am still heartbroken and I cried all three days after her death and her last week was also pretty teary-eyed and stressful for me. I can’t even say that she didn’t suffer, because she did and now I understand that she suffered not only those last few days, but probably the last few months or even years. On Tuesday the vet felt big lumps on her liver and belly that turned out to be cancer when I went to do a ultrasound and blood tests on Wednesday. She looked so bad there, I thought it’s the end, that’s she’s gonna die there at the vet…I was so scared and it wasn’t helping her. She died 15 minutes before I got to come back home from work on Thursday, fortunately my brother got home before me and he was with her in her last hour. Seeing her small body lay still, I was really hoping she’ll breathe like she usually did, but there was no breath anymore. Her little ears were cold, her little paws curled under and cold. Her fur as fluffy as usual, but so different at the same time. Even writing about it makes me cry hard.

I can’t really come to terms with her being gone. She’s been with me since I was in 6th grade, we basically grew up together, played together, destroyed things at the house together and also matured together. She was always there, a sweet silent companion through good and bad times. The bad times especially, when she curled up on my lap or wherever and I could just cry into her fur and pet her and she’d purr and comfort me with just being this fluffy ball of love. I miss her so bad. The house is so empty without her. I catch myself looking for her after I come home. checking if there’s food and water in her bowl, which obviously is not standing there anymore. I go look into my parents’ room where she used to sit when she was left at home. I wait to hear her scratch at my window and meow in the evening. There are countless little habits that I picked up throughout these years that won’t be gone soon…if ever. The fact that I always check the floor when I enter the house, because she used to sit right beside the doorstep inside, so if you weren’t being careful, you’d step on her tail. The fact that she always sat with her tail lay across the path that you’d go, just to annoy you and make you notice her.

I never lost someone who was this close to me. I think there’s no one in my life that was/is as close to me as she was. So even though someone might say “it was just a cat” for me it was a living being that has been by my side day and night for EIGHTEEN years.

Being computer-savvy

So even with her being gone…the first days were difficult. Now I deal better with it. So it’s not that it gets easier, I just get better at dealing with her absence.

Yeah, literally rolling. In my 6 weeks off training I gained a round 6 kg, which made me even more round, so I feel like I’m rolling, not walking.

I don’t really care that much about it, but I also feel no motivation to eat clean and shed those additional kilos. I know it’s dangerous coz they will stay with me otherwise, but I just can’t bring myself to eat clean, it hurts me too much to endure it right now. So…I let it go 😉 and eat chocolate. I’m so bad.

Well, 6 weeks off any kind of physical activity, taking lots of meds and antibiotics made me pretty useless in the gym. My conditioning is out the window and basically everything I worked hard for and achieved during the last six months disappeared in those 6 weeks.

I still have the will to train and this is what makes me pack my bag and go back to training.

Saying goodbye is hard

At the end of March my trainer Igor has left for Bahrain, where lucky people will now have the opportunity to train with him and we did a little goodbye-party and prepared a little gift for him.

During that last training we were doing pads and he hold one last rounds of pads for me, it felt so good!!! I mean I was dying it was so exhausting, but pads with him make you always feel incredible and so powerful! But most of all, I felt incredibly honoured that he did it just for me! 🙂 I really hope he’ll come back soon!

Me and my MuayYing friend – in the middle our trainer Igor

Starting training again after being sick – First week back

In my first week back I didn’t push it too hard and went just twice a week for Muay Thai, went on long walks with my dog (3km) and did two low intensity fitness classes.

At one of the trainings we were doing 5 (FIVE) rounds of light sparring, and I was soooo exhausted at round TWO… it’s so bad… I feel like an infant at the gym, trying to keep up, but being totally out of shape. I was giving myself props for the amount of workout and stamina that I used to have…man I had to work so hard!! 😀 I really do train hard! 😀

What’s next

As I only have three Muay Thai trainings a week now (with my trainer Ziemek and his mostly beginner-ish group), I want to focus on strength and stretching. And conditioning, along the way.

I strained my back a bit two months ago and this made me think I need to take better care of my back – I’ll be going to “healthy” fitness classes that focus on strengtheningyour core and back muscles to prevent any injury.

I’ll also focus more on stretching after trainings (which I neglected this past half a year) and I also will join stretching classes at least once a week. (I already found a place)

The remaining free time I want to use for strength training at the gym, but I’m still working out this part of the plan.

Can I lay down already? No??

Trying out new places

Last Wednesday after training I went to check out a fitness gym nearby that I have never been to – it’s called FitFans – and they had a Stretching class in their schedule which I wanted to check out. Unfortunately the class was canceled, because there were not enough people on that day. Well, since I already went there I checked out the gym, got my membership login and hopefully the class will be held next week (tomorrow). Cool thing was though, I accidentaly met a guy there who I trained with previously, but haven’t seen for a while since I went to Thailand. It was nice catching up and chatting about the current situation of nearby gyms 😀 I’m making him come train with me again! It will be awesome to have the bar set high right in front of me again in training! It motivates me to train harder!

So, next up was my “take care of your back” day and I went to a fitness class dedicated to strengthening your core muscles. Maaaaaan, it was so exhausting! I mean, just basic fitness exercises, but all the ones I dread…The fact that I was so exhausted after it made me strangely competitive and I decided I have to go there regularly and get better at it and NOT be so exhausted. Let’s see what I’ll say in a month! Bad thing is, the AC irritated my nose and I think I’ll have to find a gym with no AC until my sinuses/hay fever is over and healthy again.

On Friday night I had a sudden urge to go kick the bag, so I jumped into the car and drove nearby to a gym I really feel at home at – FDF Club – and I did 5 round on the bag, trying to work on the quickness of my kicks. So exhausting! but it felt so good!

So as you see, I’m still rolling around slowly, but surely. I need to take it slow at the moment, coz my body can’t handle my usual pace and I don’t want to be sick again…I’m so fragile hahahahaha…:D 😀 😀

I hope next time I’ll write about some kickass moves I pulled on the guys in training 😀 but let’s see! Until then!

PS. I was looking at scooters this past week and I decided to buy one 😀 My family is horrified which takes the fun out of it a little bit 😦

But me being me (a rebel), I’ll do what I feel is right for me. The guy selling it will prepare it for me and bring it over during the weekend! Next week I’ll need to register it and then…I’ll start riding!!! 😀

It’s already been almost 2 months since I’m back from Thailand, but the whole adventure has left a lot of memories. I wrote about most of them in my previous blog post 🙂
There are some things though that I haven’t mentioned, but in retrospect they really messed with what I was used to.

1. Water in the toilets
The fact that the water filled up the toilet as if it were overflowing REALLY freaked me out at first!!! When I went into the first toilet stall on the airport I was sure the toilet was broken and will spill over any moment!! 😂😂😂

2. Walk-in showers with no seperating walls
So I’m used to showers that have a kind of stall, cubicle, walls. I even use walk-in showers with thin walls separating the shower from the rest of the room.
But a walk-in shower that is basically your whole bathroom? Including the toilet seat and washing basin? That’s a first!!

3. Eating with a spoon and fork
I got over this one pretty quickly, but it was hilarious the first few times when I was looking around for a knife and wondering how I should eat my meal with a spoon instead of a knife 🙂

4. Leaving your shoes out front
This is the one I struggled a lot with for my whole stay. I was basically just looking if someone else does it and then followed suit.
In supermarkets and 7/11s I never saw people taking off their shoes at the entrance, but before walking in to small shops or bars they did.
Worst thing was when I wanted to walk into a shop as the only person… I assumed I have to put them off if the owner was barefoot inside 😂
Also, I realize that in Bangkok I only took off my shoes before walking into the gym, but in Phuket every other place I had to take off my shoes. Well, I was mostly wearing flip-flops, so no problem with taking them off!

5. Riding on the scooter with no helmet

Riding the scooter was a huge thing for me, because I never rode one before. And my first time was as a back-ride with no helmet on! 😉
I was a little bit scared at first, but then I started to enjoy it.
When I borrowed my own scooter later on, I was wearing the helmet…sometimes 😉

So, these were my impressions of the unusual things from my perspective, even though they seem funny to me now 🙂
This also teaches me that you need to open up to other cultures and other things you might not be used to, it helps to ease into difficult things and makes you much more relaxed!